


reverberation

by limerental



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:33:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29361813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limerental/pseuds/limerental
Summary: Kala thinks of the cycles of the universe, of the breath in her lungs that she has felt rise with the same cadence as seven others, of the breath that will go on beyond her, eclipsing her and this fragmented life. Like ripples that spread across a still waterway. She thinks of gods that fissure into images and avatars, supreme being and young man and infant in one, distinct and yet whole.
Relationships: Wolfgang Bogdanow/Kala Dandekar/Rajan Rasal
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	reverberation

**Author's Note:**

> i won't write sense8 fic, i said, too much research, i said. then i didn't research anything and still wrote 1k very indulgent words of kala pov because i love her very dearly.

Afterward, it pours seeping rain for a steady week, a deluge that cannot quite rival the monsoons back home. She thinks of a cafe in Berlin, raindrops trembling in the dregs of a cappuccino, the taste of espresso a bitter echo on her tongue. The rain here is all damp asphalt, muted diesel fumes, pervasive cigarette smoke.

The Parisian streets give up wet blooms of reflections, and even as Kala reaches out into the stream of rain off the awning, her skin tightens with the ache of a Kenyan drought, she smells the crisp, sulfur-tinged fog off a cold sea on the lip of the Icelandic coast, she feels the warm, baking kiss of the red sun over pollution-heavy skies in California.

She is alone and not alone on the balcony. Dense clouds seem to brush the very tops of the Parisian buildings, and in the same moment, the sky is so bright and blue and clear it could blind her with its brilliance and is bloodied and rippling with the saturation of a sunrise and a sunset at once.

They have all filtered home across the globe, her family. Percolating back into their different pieces of the world, even as parts of them trickle back through the connection and ricochet. No longer do they have one body, one birthplace, one legacy. Their homes becoming one another’s homes, their bodies one another's homes.

Nostalgia for places and moments she has never been ripples through her. She thinks of Berlin. Of the cigarettes she has never really tasted on outdoor patios at which she has never really sat. She thinks of Mumbai. Of climbing jasmine and incense smoke. Of the glowing, nighttime haze of a rooftop.

And then, she is not alone at all, a hand touched to the small of her back and another to her shoulder.

Kala does not have to look to see which man stands on which side.

One touch echoes, reverberating back into herself. The other steadies, firm and solid and simple.

The apartment in Paris feels empty now that the others have gone and yet is still full of them in glimpses here and there. Less now that their separate lives have marched on.

Soon, her own life will as well, as inevitably as anything. They cannot hide forever in the sepia-toned warmth of the flat, curtains billowing in a wet breeze. But her own life does not exist as it once did, perhaps has not existed in such a way since the first time that these hands touched her. Her life schisms in branching directions that lap back and away again like the tides. Her life splits in eight directions at once and in two.

Two men. A harrowing choice. A daunting decision.

And somehow, impossibly, miraculously, those paths also converge, sweeping back to her as one. Conjoined.

Kala thinks of the cycles of the universe, of the breath in her lungs that she has felt rise with the same cadence as seven others, of the breath that will go on beyond her, eclipsing her and this fragmented life. Like ripples that spread across a still waterway. She thinks of gods that fissure into images and avatars, supreme being and young man and infant in one, distinct and yet whole.

She thinks of fresh snow, of the scent of marigolds, of the rivulets of rain that run down the goosebumps on her reaching arm.

She is not the only one reaching into the patter of rain. Beside her, a pale arm, calloused palm tipped up. The brown skin of another, soft in ways that the other is not. And many other arms, intertwining, clustered.

Kala thinks of divinity, how so many different gods appear in iconography with arms plumed about their bodies like a peacock’s feathers. Representing the different iterations of their nature, their schisms, their pieces both fragmented and united. Things to hold onto. Things to reach for.

Feeling her body as the sacred culmination of a lifetime of events and actions, hopes and aspirations, she reaches with both hands to touch their palms cooled by the rain. She intertwines their fingers, feels the thrum of the pulse in the sharp tendons of their wrists.

She does not turn around, not yet, and knows she does not have to choose which side to turn, who to look at first. She thinks of Rajan, her love for him creeping up on her as silent as an alleycat, as slow as a flower that blooms only at dusk, as startlingly sweet as the scent such a flower carries. She thinks of Wolfgang, of drowning in him, of the heat that explodes in her breast at the very thought of him, a love as sweltering as a summer night, a love as all-consuming as a crushing wave.

Both of these men connected to her, in different and in similar ways. Both mingling with the threads of the universe. A different sort of resonance.

In the same breath, she turns in their arms in both directions and cannot say for certain which body is flesh, which iteration is her truest self. What would a stranger’s eyes see, looking from the shelter of some other balcony?

Perhaps, only the rain. 

Kala kisses both of them at once, and again is thrilled and awed to find that their lips taste of one another. Wolfgang feels and shares the thought, impish smile curving against her lips and remaining as he leans away, his hand stealing up to grip the back of Rajan’s neck and tug until their mouths align. Kala feels it an ache through her loins, in a stutter beneath her breastbone.

And she feels it as Wolfgang, the softness of her husband’s mouth opening to him. In a way, she feels it as Rajan, as a memory of how overpowering, all-consuming Wolfgang’s kiss had been when it was new. Under her lover’s attention, her husband is as meek as a virgin, slack-jawed and dazed, surprised anew each time by the intensity of Wolfgang’s gaze, the commanding touch of the hand that slides into his hair, the urgent press of lips that part to marry the warm slide of their tongues.

Kala thinks of the taste of saffron and honey. She thinks of the burn of cheap whiskey. She thinks of the champagne hiss of velvet foam rolling down their forearms the night of the wedding.

She thinks she will never tire of kissing her husband with Wolfgang’s mouth, never lose her delight in watching it happen from two different angles, snug behind her lover with chin tilted against his shoulder and close in her husband’s arms, looking up. She still feels parts of herself fracturing and rearranging, reverberating back to her.

She knows whatever new and strange shape home takes, it will always be this. Always be a thing made of many faces with many reaching arms.


End file.
